Pages

Monday, October 21, 2013

Penguins Game 9 Preview - vs. Colorado Avalanche

Colorado Avalanche

7:30 p.m., CONSOL Energy Center, Pittsburgh, PA

The Last Penguins Game
October 19, 2013 - Pittsburgh 4, Vancouver 3 (SO)

This is going to be the first true test of the season for the Penguins. Not only are they going against a team that has their exact same record (7-1-0) they are going against a team that a lot of people didn't really expect it out of. Colorado is taking the league by surprise as they are under the direction of first year coach Patrick Roy. No idea what to think of Roy. He has been pretty tame lately but at any moment you can just see him freaking out at a bad call.

Anyways, the Avs are pretty good. They boast a youthful lineup with a lot of draft picks from the previous years that includes Matt Duchene, Ryan O'Reilly, Gabriel Landeskog, and Nathan MacKinnon while they are getting some pretty outstanding goaltending from former Capitals netminder Semyon Varlamov who has a .950 save percentage in six games this season. Varlamov has been great but it will be Jean-Sebastien Giguere for the Avs tonight. He has been pretty great too although only in two games.

The Penguins are down some talent due to injuries but it should be fun watching guys like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the defense go against these guys. While it might not have been looked at as a big-time matchup at the beginning of the year it seems like that is going to be the case in the early portion of the season.